


hydrophobia

by qwerty



Series: Summerpornathon 2011 [6]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Community: kinkme_merlin, Community: summerpornathon, M/M, Necrophilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-05
Updated: 2011-09-05
Packaged: 2017-10-23 11:07:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/249609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qwerty/pseuds/qwerty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin is one of the young men that have been killed in the great purge. He comes back to haunt Uther and his son Arthur, heir to the throne.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hydrophobia

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Round 3 of Summerpornathon, Challenge 5: Kinkmeme.

He hits the ground running, and briefly wonders that he hasn't broken his neck, his head, an arm and a leg, _anything_ ; doesn't look back at the high window he'd fallen from or think of the people he's leaving -- _his father, Morgana_ \-- never mind the ghostly voice that has been whispering in his ear for weeks and the cold, wet hand around his wrist; his mind is filled to breaking with revelation and rage, the red witch's words dinning in his skull with his own self-loathing. His mother's death, Gaius's complicity, the lives of innocents; the axe, the stake, and worst of all the children, gods, the drowned children, most unforgivable of all--

He gasps and chokes, misses his stride and crashes headlong into the dirt, and stays there, panting out wracked sobs in the dark and feeling the shadowed trees above, behind him, as though the branches were about to reach down and seize him for the role he played in this travesty, and still he feels the wet hand gripping him helplessly and the voice, still murmuring in an endless loop, unaware of time and place and trapped and lost as Arthur himself--

 _not my mother, take me, leave her alone, don't kill her, just take me, she didn't know, she's_

\-- Arthur squeezes the delicate bones -- _detached at the wrist and the elbow_ \-- still somehow clutched in his hand, feeling them give slightly, and the litany stutters and stops. It asks, _who_ , as the tide of fear and despair retreats and clears his mind, draws Arthur's own rage along in their wake. He lets out a long, terrible exhalation at the easing of the pressure in his head and heart, slows his breathing deliberately, trying to calm himself.

The ghost hand on his arm slips, begins to draw back, and he squeezes the bones again, not wanting to lose this last almost-human contact, this cold touch, and it closes back around his wrist, emanating confusion. _Who?_

He rolls onto his back, pressing the arm-bones to his chest, as though he could push his own heartbeat into the arm and make it live again. _Who are you?_ as the hand slowly moves up his own arm, feeling almost exploratory. Cold, and wet, and circling curiously around his forearm, then his bicep.

"I'm the one who killed you," Arthur says, and it stops, lifts from his arm. He sobs out loud at the loss, feeling the benighted woods pressing in all around him, clutches the bones to his heart with both hands unashamedly, and a drop of water falls on his cheek, cold and stagnant as the bottom of a lake. The ghostly hand returns and brushes the cold water from his cheek as it mingles with his hot tears, wraps around the back of his neck comfortingly.

 _It wasn't you, I would remember that,_ says the voice, wondering and awake and _present_ , real as it could never have been while trapped in its dying dream, and more real than anything else in the world right now.

"I am the reason they killed you," he says, running his hands absently along the bones, fascinated by the texture, neither smooth nor rough, firm yet giving slightly beneath the pressure of his fingers, and the way the cold hand on his neck flexes uncertainly, as though it could feel his touch. "I did this to you."

"It wasn't you," the ghost repeats, cold and dripping and heavy against his side, unseen, spongy lips brushing his ear. "You didn't kill me. It wasn't your fault." Softer, uncertain, wanting to soothe: "you are not alone."

It's amazing. It's heady, it takes his breath away, it's too much. It is forgiveness, acceptance, a fellow lost soul that knows him for himself and not what he stands for -- _an heir, a pawn, a symbol of loss and betrayal_ \-- he wants, and wants urgently, as though having this would undo all the wrongs that have been carried out in his name; he presses the bones to his lips and kisses them as his eyes leak and his mouth waters with his need, leans into the cold, wet hand softly stroking his neck.

 _who are you_ the voice asks again, and he reaches down and undoes his breeches mindlessly, presses the touch-warmed bones against his erection and groans, -- _who_ \-- and he cries out, "Arthur, my name is, Arthur," as he comes.


End file.
